Clare Crouchman

Artist Biography - Clare Crouchman

Clare discovered ceramics in 1992 whist I travelling in Japan. During this time she studied traditional Japanese ceramic techniques and participated in several Japanese ceramic fairs. She immediately felt an affinity with the ceramic process from the earthy, physical, raw clay to the alchemy of the Anagama kiln firing. On her return to the UK she continued this fascination with... clay by studying MA Ceramics at UWIC, Cardiff where she developed her individual technique of inlaying different textured clays within a two dimensional format.

Clare has been creating her highly distinctive ceramic wall panels since setting up her own studio in 1997. Stoneware clay has unique properties that she enjoys exploring. There are multiple textures ranging from rough, heavy grog to smooth, shiny glazed porcelain that create tactile, contrasting surfaces. The ceramic medium allows a variety of lines and marks to be utilized in the work. As well as painting layers with different stained clays and inlaying different clays, drawing into the clay is a crucial element of her work. It is in itself a contemplative process.

In 2008 Clare completed an MA in Printmaking at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge. Her prints combine both the techniques of intaglio and relief printing within one print. She uses materials that have texture and a richness of surface such as carborundum and collagraph techniques and layer several plates together.

Her fascination for the beauty of the landscape has deepened over the years into an appreciation of the details. These fragments suggest that there is an orderly process in the chaos of the natural world. Finding her own order in this chaos is explored through abstracted forms, particularly rhythmical and repetitive patterns which offer reference to this ordered nature whilst maintaining a visual language of reduced and economical form.